| BREAKING NEWS July 5, 2013 |
The Zombie Opera and the Bechdel Test |
Some of you are familiar with a set of criteria known as the Bechdel Test, named after cartoonist Alison Bechdel, which is a set of rules for identifying the presence of gender bias in a work of fiction. The rules are as follows:
1. Are there 2 or more female characters?
2. Do they talk to each other?
3. About something other than a man?
If a work of fiction can answer yes to all three questions, then it can be said to having strong female characters. Fiction that fails the Bechdel test isn’t necessarily bad, it just means that male and female characters aren’t balanced.
The Zombie Opera would like to proudly declare that this work passes the Bechdel test. The two main characters are Ronnie and Izzie, two women with a healthy friendship. Their main focus in the story is survival, and that’s what they mostly talk about. While Ronnie is the leader, their friendship is pretty well balanced- Ronnie is the fighter, while Izzie is the muse. In one of their two largest scenes together, Izzie convinces Ronnie to keep surviving by describing imagery of beauty in dark times- neither one of them ever uses love or romance as their motivation.
But we haven’t forgotten about the men, either. If we were to flip the Bechdel test and apply it to the male characters, it still passes. Charles and Professor Thalamus have a clear teacher-student relationship, and while Professor Thalamus talks AT Charles more than he talks WITH him, their conversations are scientific in nature and pertain more to the structure of the virus or the methods of preventing the spread of infection. Charles does use love as the motivation of his survival, but he is also able to balance this factor with other defining characteristics.
The Zombie Opera relies on a rich tapestry of relationships to tell it’s sordid story- Best friends, mentor/student, friend/secret love interest, Brother/sister, rivals, father/daughter figure, reluctant friends/wing man. We hope that these relationships add to your enjoyment of this production and encourage you to check out some of their defining moments in the songs available for download on iTunes and Amazon.com:
Brains
Shadow
Last Call
I’ve Been Bitten
I Will Take Care of You
…and many more!
Or you can peruse all of the various relationships by checking out the Premiere October 2010 DVD!
